/ 



p 104 

TIISTORIC SKETCH c°pv i 



FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST 



In Wethersfleld, 



GLVEN FROM THE PULPIT JULY 9, 1876, 



A. C. ADAMS. 



PaSTOU of the ClIUKCH. 



HARTFOllD. CONN.: 
THE ALLEN & SHERWOOD CO., PRJNTERS. 

1877. 



\ 



HISTORIC SKETCH 



OF THE 



FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST 



111 Wetliersfield, 



GIVEN FROM THE PULPIT JULY 9, ISTG, 



A. C. ^DAMS, 



PaSTOU op the CnURCH. 



nARTFORD. CONN".: 
THE ALTiEN & SHERWOOD CO., PRINTERS. 

1877. 






Published by request of the Church. 



/i 



^ HISTORIC SKETCH 



" Thou bast broufrbt a vine out of Egypt ; Thou hast cast out the 
heathen and planted it.'— Psai.m i.xxx : 8. 

It is now a little more than two hundred and forty years since 
the valley of the Connecticut began to be occupied by our 
fathers. It was only about fifteen years from the landing at 
Plymouth, and five from the settlement of Boston, and yet the 
emigrating propensity, which has ever since characterized the 
Yankee nation, had already begun to work. There was not room 
enough in the Bay Colon}', and it must be found elsewhere. 

Why the first movement was made in this direction may be 
partly due to tlie representations of Walupiinacut, an Indian 
Chief, who visited the Bay as early as 16.31, and invited the Eng- 
lish to come and see for themselves the fertility and beauty of a 
reaion still accounted the Paradise of Xew England. About two 
hundred and forty years, and yet, if you date from the first dem- 
onstration toward a settlement, it is two hundred and forty-three 
years. 

That Wethersfield was one of the three towjis first settled, is 
universally agreed. But which was the first of the three, Hart- 
ford, Windsor, or Wetherstield? The facts seem to be, that in 
1633 a trading house was built in AVindsor, at the mouth of the 
Tunxis, now known as the Farmington ; that in 1634 a little 
company of settlers came t<j Py(iuag, soon after called Wethers- 
field, and built their huts there ; that in 1635 other settlers came 
to Wethersfield, and also to Hartford and Windsor. The Wind- 
sor people speak of theirs as the oldst town in Connecticut. If 
you date from the establishment of the trading house, it unques- 
tionably is ; but if from the time when families came, and houses 
were built for them, then Wethersfield. On the whole it is a 



pretty evenly-balanced question, and we may as well cast the 
deciding vote in favor of our own town, and call Wethersfield 
first. Hartford has no claim at all to that distinction. 

But if we are first we shall have to admit that it is because we 
Avcre a little more willful and impatient of authority than our 
neighbors. People of Watertown, Dorchester, and Newtown, all 
petitioned the General Court of the Bay Colony for leave to emi- 
grate. The Court refused, at lirst, the permission it afterwards 
granted; but we, the Watertown people, had made up our minds 
to come, and so came, regardless of the General Court, and were 
on the ground, a few of us, and built our huts in the fall of 1634. 
But this was only preparatory, and you must come to 1635 and 
1636 to see the three settlements really established. 

The journey of these little communities across the country, 
and the hardships which attended the first settlement, ought not 
to be soon forgotten by their children. Men, women, and chil- 
dren making their Avay on foot through a hundred and twenty 
miles of pathless forests, over mountains, and through thickets, 
swamps, and streams, — a fortnight on the way, — the Windsor 
people not reaching their destination till November, and in that 
same month the river frozen over; the winter one of great 
severity, not as fatal, but attended with as great hardship and 
suffering, as the first at Plymouth; household supplies, sent 
around by water from Boston, greatly delayed, and much utterly 
lost; starvation threatened; some of the people making their way 
back through the forest to Massachusetts, others by way of the river 
and the sea; the remnant, with what supplies they have, and with 
what they obtain from the forest, just managing to live through. 
Reinforcements come with the summer of 1636, and the colony is 
fairly established. 

Wethersfield, as originally purchased of the Indians, was six 
miles long on the river, and eight miles from east to west, three 
miles on the east side of the river, and five on the west side. To 
this Avas added subsequently a five mile purchase eastward, which 
made the whole territory six miles by thirteen. The deed, as 
recorded on our Town Records, must have astonished Tarramug- 
gus, Massacuppee, and the five other Indians who set their marks 
to it. A whole Law Lexicon might as well have been discharged 
upon them. The Conimittee who made the purchase (it was in 



1673,) bear names familiar to lis of the present day, — Chester, 
Talcott, Treat, and Welles. 

With these three towns — Windsor, Hartford, Wethersfield — 
Connecticut began; and the first General Court, made up of rep- 
resentatives from the three, was held in 1637, although a Court 
was held the year before under the authority of the Bay Colony. 

In the preamble to the first Constitution we sec upon what 
idea Connecticut began. That preamble reads as follows: "For- 
asmuch as it bath pleased Almighty God so to order and dispose 
things as that we, the inhabitants of Windsor, Hartford, and 
Wethersfield, are now dwelling upon the river of Connecticut 
and the lands adjoining, and whereas, the Word of God requires 
that to maintain peace and union there should be an orderly and 
decent government according to God, we do therefore associate 
and conjoin ourselves as one public State or CommonAvealth, and 
do for ourselves and our successors, and such as shall be adjoined 
to us at any time hereafter, enter into combination and confed- 
eration •' — and what for ? for herein is their peculiarity — " to 
preserve the liberty and the purity of the Gospel of our Lord 
Jesus Christ which we now profess, as also the discipline of the 
churches, which, according to the truth of the said Gospel, is 
now practiced among us" — there is the first grand object, and 
then comes in secondarily this, — "also in civil affairs, to be 
guided and governed according to such laws, orders, and decrees 
as shall be made, ordered, and decreed." 

You have thus in the early Connecticut a community of free- 
men who must ultimately, if their tendencies are carried out, be 
free in form as well as fact, and turn their preamble into a 
Declaration of Independence. You have men who believe in 
God as the fountain of authority, and in government as ordained 
by him and responsible to him. You have a company of godly 
men, a confederation of Christian churches, coming out into the 
wilderness to occupy lands Avhicli they have purchased, to wor- 
ship God as He prescribes, to organize society in His fear, and as 
they judge most for their own and their children's good. I do 
not see but they had a perfect right to do it. 

And yet they were men who had human nature in them, and 
besides, as is almost always seen in the l)cginning of things, they 
understood their principles better than they did the limitations 



of those principles, and the wisest way of working them. Hence 
much that Avas extreme and impracticable, and that bred some- 
times discord among themselves. In this Wethersfield had its 
full share, both in difficulties of its own and in those shared 
with the colony at large. It may be an encouragement to some 
of us, who are apt to magnify the troubles of our time, and to 
think that everything is going to the bad, to see wliat our fathers 
went through. 

No Churcli was organized in Wetherstield for the tirst seven 
years (1634 to IG-il), and the people Avere, during that time, a 
fragment of the church in Watertown. There were several min- 
isters in their company, and men of excellent repute, but none 
who stood in the exact place of a pastor ; and partly in conse- 
quence of that, differences and contentions arose. The ministers 
and elders of Hartford and Windsor, and subsequently Daven- 
port of New Haven, endeavored to restore liarmony, but in vain; 
till at length, upon advice, one party left AVethersfield, and began 
a settlement at Stamford. A second secession took place not 
long after, in which *''a considerable number of families " went 
with another minister to Milford. Even thijse Avho remained 
were but moderately well united, and though tlie Church is said 
to have ])een organized in 1641, it was yet a debated (juestion 
whether it was duly organized or not. As late as 1650, the Gen- 
eral Court has a deliverance on the subject, which begins with a 
l)reamble, that ^'Whereas, It is well known that there was a 
Ciiurch orderly gathered at Wethersfield Ijy the full approbation 
of the Court and Churches," and then goes on to allege that 
"divers members of said Clnirch have removed without notice, 
and without the approbation either of the Court or of the 
Churches, and that some still resident in Wethersfield unjustly 
question the station and being of the Churcli," and thereupon 
the Court dechires "that, for anything tliat doth appear, it is the 
true and undoubted Church of Wethersfield, and so to be 
esteemed." And yet the Court leaves it open for any Avho may 
think they can prove the contrary to appear at their coming 
session in May. From the sul>sequent silence on the subject, I 
conclude that nobody did appear, and that our poor little Churcli 
came to be an acknowledged fact. If a man or a church is alive, 
it goes a good way to show that sometime or other it was born. 



The tirst duly installed pastor was Kev. Henry Smith, and 
with his advent yon might hope that quiet times were coming. 
Bnt no. Difficnlty begins very early, first started and pushed 
forward by Mi". Chaplin, the ruling elder, who probably wanted 
to rule more than it was best he should. 

Accusations were made against Mr. Smith, of some impropriety, 
or mal-administration in his otfice, and also of being no better 
than he should be in his business affairs. The trouble spread, 
and the fight waxed hotter and hotter, till at length it was 
carried into the General Court. The Court acquit Mr. Smith; 
])ut he wants more than a bare acquital, and upon his sug- 
gestion, all who have any grievance against him are sum- 
moned. On a careful examination, the Court concludes that the 
complaints are mostly grounded in misapprehension, and that 
Mr. Smith was "much wronged by false reports and unjust sur- 
mises." His accusers are punished. Mr. Chaplin, " for setting 
his hand to a paper tending to defamation of Mr. Smith," is 
fined ten pounds. Francis Norton, " for setting his hand to the 
same," is fined five pounds. Mr. Plum, for preferring a roll of 
grievances against Mr. Smith, and failing of proof in the prose- 
cution thereof, is fined ten pounds. 

It would lighten our taxes wonderfully, if every man who 
alleges against his neighbor what he cannot prove, Avas obliged 
to pay for it. 

It is further ordered that, " if any man shall renew these accu- 
sations against Mr. Smith, he shall be fined ten pounds." The 
malcontents, of course, are not i)leased with this. Some of them 
go off in a third secession, and settle in Branford. Others stay 
in Wethersfield and grumble: till at length the General Court 
advises Mr. Smith, for peace sake, to lay down his office, "if it 
can be done according to God." which means, I suppose, if he 
can do it with good conscience. The Lord saves the poor man 
the trouble of deciding that question, and, in the seventh or 
eighth year of his ministry, releases him from the turmoils of 
the earthly Church, and takes him, let us hope, to the Church 
that is at rest. 

In 1650, comes Kev. John Russel, and it is a satisfiiction that 
the storm that raged in his day did not originate in Wethersfield. 
It began in Hartford, and was felt all over Puritan Xew England. 



It was known as the Hartford Controversy. " Wliat the precise 
nature of it was," says Cotton Mather, " it was difficult at the 
time to tell," and certainly you cannot expect a very clear 
account of it now. Something, no doubt, very weighty, rousing 
up the consciences of good men, and making them feel that the 
salvation of the Church and the world was at stake. The con- 
troversy involved a certain reaction against the terribly stern 
theology of the time, and the attempted rigidity of ecclesiastical 
rule. It began with baptism and the half-way covenant, and ran 
into the question of Presljyterianism and Congregationalism, and 
of the relative claims of clergy and laity. The minority of the 
first Church in Hartford, finding themselves in a very hot fur- 
nace, begged the privilege of transfer to Farmington, or to 
Wethersfield, but that was denied them. They might not go 
away, and they might not stay, with any comfort. So, at length, 
they determine to go at any rate. 

They left their Hartford home, and made for themselves a 
home in wliat is now Hadley, Mass. The Church of Wethers- 
field, which sympathized with them, and Avas used to emigrating, 
went too, or rather a large, and some say the larger, portion of 
tlie Churcli, under the lead of the pastor, Mr. Kussel. He 
became the first minister of the Hadley Church, and he it was, 
as our history-reading young people may remember, who shel- 
tered for a considerable time, under his own roof, the two Regi- 
cide Judges, GofEe and Wh alley. 

So much for the first thirty years, (1634-1664.) It is abso- 
lutely all, of any special significance, that I have been able to 
gather. Church Eecords, we have none, for this entire period. 
The Town Records, scanty and hardly decipherable, throw very 
little light. We are dependent, almost entirely, upon the Colo- 
nial Record, and upon incidental allusions of various writers, in 
connexion with the " Hartford Controversy." Certainly, what 
we do get is not just what we would like to find it, nor greatly 
flattering to our pride of ecclesiastical ancestry; but it is, per- 
haps, just as well to see it as it is, and to know that the past was 
not all good, any more than the present is all bad. 

Besides there are points of relief in the whole matter. Con- 
tention about religion is certainly unlovely, and yet I am not 
sure but it is more respectable than contention about the paltry 



matters of money and of place, which afflict our eyery-day life. 
It seems to imply at least that men make some account of 
religion. Moreover, the times of our fathers were the very times 
to which we should look for sharp discussion. They were times 
in which the seeds of great thoughts were coming up and grow- 
ing. Men were attempting new and advanced methods in 
society and in religion. They had broken out from the old 
social status, and from under all established rale. They were 
undertaking to organize a perfectly right society, and a right 
church, with little reference to former models. They were ter- 
ribly conscientious. They were terribly in earnest. No wonder 
they sometimes, fell into diflSculty and strife. It is to be remem- 
bered, too, that we have not the whole story of these years before 
us, but only that part which might be expected to wear the most 
unfavorable aspect. Communities are not to be judged alto- 
gether by the records of the Police Courts, nor the domestic and 
social condition of nations by the history of their wars. And so 
in the Church. The things that make difficulty, that break up 
ministers, that divide churches, that gather councils, that carry 
ministers and people to the General Court, are conspicuous. 
But meanwhile, and behind all this smoke and dust, the people 
live on their quiet life. The Sabbaths come and go. The Word 
is preached. The prayers and praises of God's house go up. 
Multitudes live godly lives, and are cbmforted and edified and 
saved, while at the same time foundations are laid for those who 
come after. Through tribulation the Church advances. 

Upon the next thirty years (1664-1695), we have more light, 
and the whole look of things is more favorable. We have not^ 
indeed, any Church Records, even in this period, and the explana- 
tion suggested in respect to the previous thirty years, that the 
Eecords were carried away in some one of tlie secessions and lost, 
is less readily to be accepted, since the lack continues for more 
than a generation after the last of these secessions. We have, 
however, the •' Book of Town Votes," from which we can gather 
a good deal, chiefly, however, on the secular side of church life. 

Three pastorates, and the intervals preceding and following, 
fill up the second thirty years. First, that of Rev. Gershom 
Bulkley (1666-1G76). Mr. Bulkley was evidently a man of gen- 
uine goodness, and of large ability. He broke down in health, 



10 

however, early, and after ten years exchanged the ministry for 
the practice of medicine, in which, as also in the service of the 
State, he was much distinguished. One entry in the Town 
Eecords in respect to him, I hke the tone of: ** The town, being 
informed by their honored pastor that it was too hard for him, 
and beyond his power, by reason of weakness of voice, to carry 
on the wliule work of the ministry, they declare themselves 
freely willing to provide another minister to assist him in his 
work, and to be a help and a comfort to him; and they desire 
that tl)e honored pastor would afford tliem his advice and direc- 
tion respecting a meet process for that work, for which they will 
be thankful to him, and will take the same into serious consider- 
ation." 

Yon will not think it strange if I have a professional satisfac- 
tion in this action, both as evincing the people's generosity 
towards their minister, and their persuasion that in some things 
he miglit know more than they. Tliey take the matter, there- 
upon, into "serious consideration," and in due time the Rev. Mr. 
Stone, whoever he may have been, is engaged as an assistant to 
Mr. Bulkley. 

The next pastorate is that of Eev. Mr. Eowlandson, cut short 
by his decease in a little more than a year from his settlement. 
In connexion with this,a single item from the Town Records, cer- 
tainly most creditable to to tiie generosity of the people. " Voted, 
that Mrs. Eowlandson shall receive the whole salary for the cur- 
rent year, amounting to one hundred and twenty pounds, and 
thereafter thirty pounds a year, so long as she shall remain a 
widow among us." Considering how short the pastorate of JNIr. 
EoAvlandson had been, and tliat Mrs. R. had probably many 
years of life before lier, it is a striking evidence of the people's 
regard for the ministry, and for all a^jpertaiuing to it. 

After some interval comes the ministry of Rev. Mr. Woodbridge, 
which continues for twelve years. On one occasion the town 
votes him twenty pounds additional, " on account of his extra- 
ordinary charges for the current year. At another time they 
vote that he shall have four score cords of wood — enough, one 
would think to keep him warm — "forty cords to be sent in by 
individuals, not more than one load to a man, and forty to be 
provided by the selectmen, in such way as they see fit," with a 



11 

proviso " that the loads sent in shall be viewed by Joseph Wright, 
and that if any load is not wortl^. two shillings and six pence, it 
shall be returned to him who sends it." 

Evidently they had no idea of compromising with meanness, 
and were ready to say to a man that would cheat his minister, in 
the spirit of ti\e Apostle's outburst upon Simon, the magician, 
'*' Thy wood-pile perish with thee." 

But no number of incidents th;it I can quote, will fully give 
you the impression made by the perusal of these old records. 
They abound in traces of the large place which religion held in 
the community, and of the great concern to have its institutions 
duly honored. The house of worship, the safeguards thrown 
around the Sabbath, the provision for training the young in 
sacn d music, at the town's expense, the earnestness to secure and 
maintain a stated and permanent ministry, the many comings 
and goings to this end, the negotiations held, the messengers 
traveling on horseback, far and near, the careful and exact pro- 
vision made, for both pastor and assistant, many things that I 
cannot well give, make the impression of a community singularly 
practical and in earnest in matters of religion. 

There is one instance connected with the measures taken to fill 
the pastoral office, which is almost droll in its frankness and par- 
ticularity. Rev. Mr. Willaubee is invited from "the Bay," to 
come and minister to them. If he will come and preach a year, 
" they will pay him seventy pounds, and furnish a house for him 
to live in, and give him the use of the land known as the Church's 
Land. They will also pay for the transportation of his family 
and goods from the Bay Colony, where he lives." Then, further, 
''If God shall unite our hearts in him to be our minister, we will 
add to liis maintenance as God shall enable us; or if not, if he do 
not like us, or we do not like him to be our minister, we will pay 
for his transportation back again to the Bay." Certainly, that is 
frank and fair; he knows and they know that ministers and peo- 
ple sometimes like one another, and sometimes not, and they talk 
it right out Ironi the biginning, and the minister knows Just 
what to exjiect. 

These old Town Records, let me say in passing, are a wonder- 
ful treasury. They open to us a state of society, and a domestic, 
social, religious ongoing of things, which it is not a little difficult 



12 

to realize as actually existeut. A little, almost independent com- 
iniinit}^ cutting down for itself a place in the forest, carrying on 
government, almost with the exactness and elaborateness of the 
most august legislative bodies, sitting in judgment upon all sorts 
of affairs, undertaking to maintain, however moderately success- 
ful, a perfect society, allowing none to come and live among 
them, save by town vote, regulating affairs between neighbors, 
sustaining religious institutions, making land grants to widows 
and orphans, loaning money from the public treasurj^ — on good 
security, you maybe sure — to unfortunate fellow citizens, punish- 
ing not crimes only, but negligencies, improprieties, and ill man- 
ners, — it could not last, but the attempt, and the motive, and the 
good training it gave, visible in its effects even to the present 
day, may well command our respect. Their Town Meetings, 
occuring very frequently, held sometimes, with an interval for 
lunch, from nine in the morning to nine in the evening, discuss- 
ing and determining almost all imaginable questions, recall and 
impress the often quoted remark of DeTocqueville, to the effect 
that the free institutions of the American Continent had their 
birth in the New England Town Meeting. 

I might dwell longer upon these things without straying from 
my subject, for the town was practically a Church in the early 
times, and the Church has been, down to our day, the shaping 
force of the town. But I pass on t-> what may be called the third, 
period of our history, which begins with the ministry of liev. 
Stephen Mix, in 1694, sixty years from the town's first settlement, 
and with whom our Church Records begin. 

Our Church Records I say, and yet this little faded, tattered, 
leather-covered memorandum book, about the size of your gro- 
cer's pass book, is all we have for a ministry of forty-four years. 
(1694-1738.) 

The book is taken up chiefly with a record of baptisms, and 
these mainly of children, with lists here and there of communi- 
cants received, and with a few brief notices of discipline, admin- 
istered by the pastor ratlier than by the Church. One little pecu- 
liarity of Mr. Mix, you will pardon your pastor for extracting a 
little comfort from, considering his own poor reputation as re- 
gards the memory of names. Over and over I find entries like 
the following: "Baptized child of Josiah Riley,— Rebecca, I 



think its name was. " Child of Isaac Goodwin, — Sarah, I think 
the name was." " EHzabeth, 1 think its name was, child of 
Joseph Steele." " Mary, I think was the name, child of Josiah 
Churchill." "Josiah, I think its name was, child of Jonathan 
Wright." 

I suspect, however, from certain indications, that it is not 
altogetlier poor memory, but great scrupulosity on the part of 
^Ir. Mix, as regards the exact truthfulness of his statements. 
Here and there we have one baptised upon the parents, "owning 
the covenant," though not really members of the church. 

The good man evidently yearns to give assurance of God's 
grace in baptism to all he can. Now and then the Negro ser- 
vant of this or that man is baptized, upon the master's promis- 
ing to train him religiously. One entry, more perhaps in the 
spirit of his Master than the intense individualism of our time 
would readily acknowledge, is as follows: " Baptized Ebenezer, 
child of Jerusha Hollister. The mother had died, and this poor 
illegitimate orphan I spoke to the selectmen about, that they 
would engage in behalf the town for its Christian education, 
which was not I suppose, dissented from, and so I baptized him. 
The child died next day." 

Almost all the baptisms seem to be of children, and there 
were probably very few adults in the community in those days 
who had not been baptized. Here are two or three cases of the 
manner of treating faults in those days "I admonished" — John 
Smith, we will call him — "before the assembly, on the Saturday 
afternoon, for drinking to excess. He offfnd a confession of his 
sin; but having fallen the same way before, it was looked upon 
as a thing which he was frequently guilty of, and he was there- 
fore by me admonished." Again: " reproved in the assembly," 
John Robinson, we will call him, for something, I cannot make 
out the entire record, but it has to do with " watermelons." The 
father of John "also spake before the assembly in a way of con- 
fession for his fault, in respect to his son's conduct, and that he 
had encouraged him to withstand public confession." 

Nor was either sex spared in these Church administrations. 
"I read publicly the testimony of Henry Latimer and Grace 
Kilburn, against Prudence, the wife of John Smith," though 
what the offense was I cannot make out, and then used words 



14 

to this effect: "In the name of Christ I charge this sin npon 
jou, and warn you to turn from it, and bring forth fruits worthy 
of amendment of life," applying to her those words, 1 Cor. vi: 10. 

It must have been a pretty serious matter to go to church in 
those days, unless one carried a clean conscience Viitli him. 
Still farther, under date of March, 1700, just when the Baptist 
ways of thinking were coming up in Connecticut : " Naomi, the 
wifu of Philip Goff, had ceased to attend the public worship of God 
with us, and had been re-baptized by Jonathan Sprague, living 
in the Narraganset country, I Hunk. She owned her separation 
from the communion, and her re-baptization. She also alleged 
that we are no Church. I enquired of her what gave being to a 
Church. She said, 'profession of faith in Christ.' I replied, as 
///ri/^l', 'we profess faith in Christ' She alleged that word in 
Corinthians, '"Come out i'rom among them, and be ye separate,' 
and I tliink I told her that was a coming out from heathen tem- 
ples. After debating this, and infant baptism, and whether by 
dipping or sprinkling, I admonished her, and suspended her 
from the Lord's Supper." 

Then a second time the said Naomi is warned to " depart from 
her schism," but I fear to little purpose. I should not expect to 
make much impression on man or woman who could interpret 
Scripture as preposterously as Mistress Goff seems to have done. 
Then there is a case where "John Jillit acknoAvledged his sin in 
unfaithfulness to his word, and promised to amend in that, and 
so I baptized him." If John kept that last promise, I should 
say that there was more encouragement to baptize him than if 
he could tell a great experience, and was yet unfaithful to his 
word. 

Then there are two or three other cases, which I will not 
quote, which imply quite enough strictness of discipline, and 
which the moderns would call meddling with what was none of 
the minister's business. On the whole, Mr. Mix was a man I 
should take to, more than to most. Modest, unpretending. rigidly 
conscientious, tender in his sympathies toward every living crea- 
ture, yet marching right up to the hardest duties and the great- 
est severities without flinching— a good specimen of the Puritan 
pastor at his best. 

It was in Mr. Mix's time that Newington and Rocky Hill, 



15 

then called Stepney, became separate parishes, both of them 
about the year 1720. Glastoubiiry had b. en incorporated as a 
town in IG'JO, just before Mr. Mix came, and its first minister 
was settled in 1692. The records tell us, not always in the 
clearest and most connected way, the whole story : the petition 
of the inhabitants in each case, the representation of their dis- 
advantage in great distance from church, the town's consent to 
a separation, the grant thereupon of a portion of the parsonage 
lands, and the relinquishment by the people of the new parish of 
all claims on the old property previously owned in common. 
On these conditions they were permitted to set up for themselves. 

After Mr. Mix, comes Rev. James Lockwood, whose pastorate 
extended from 1739 to 1772, thirty-three years. From the 
beginning of Mr. Lockwood's ministry, we have clearer day-light, 
and more sense of our own relation to the establishment than 
before. Glastonbury is gone, and Newington and Eocky Hill 
gone; and tiie "First Ecclesiastical Society of Wethersfield," 
stamls out palpably before us. It has the same territory that 
Wethersfield now covers, and about the same population within 
that territory, all having one and the same church home, and 
listening to one and the same minister. It was a grand institu- 
tion, and, for the pastor, a grand opportunity. 

Mr. Lockwood was equal to the demand. "He was a good clas- 
sical scholar," savs President Stiles, " a man of prudence, and 
avoided intermeddling deeply with religious controversies. He 
was formed for usefulness, and was an honor to the ministry." 
You will not object to what the president adds, that '' he spent 
his ministerial life in a large parish, of perhaps three hundred 
families, who are said to be as well instructed in religion as any 
Church in Connecticut. He has had the prudence to lead that 
flock in great peace and love through his ministry." The fact 
is added, which is perhaps quite as significant of the esteem in 
which he was held, that he was invited, in 1758, to the presidency 
of the College of New Jersey, and then in 1766 to the presi- 
dency of Yale College, both of which invitations he declined, 
and both for the same reason, "his strong attachment to the 
people of his charge, and his consequent unwillingness to sepa- 
rate himself from them." Two notable facts stand out beyond 
the rest in Mr. Lockwood's time. One, a revival, which is said 



16 

to be the first that Wethersfield ever knew, though far less 
powerful than others since. It was in Whitfield's time, and 
connected, according to tradition, with a visit which that 
famous evangelist made to this place. The Church Eegister 
gives indication of it in the fact that forty-three were received 
to the Church in 1741, and twenty-five in 1742, whereas, Mr. 
Lockft-ood's ministry, apart from these two years, averages only 
seven or eight a year, little more than half as many as the aver- 
age of the last twenty years. The other prominent fact was the 
erection of this present house of worship, the corner stone of 
which was laid in 1761, a hundred and fifteen years ago. It was 
a great undertaking for those days, and a massive testimony to 
the hold which God's worship had upon the people. It was 
built, moreover, in hard times, one more illustration of the fact 
tliat it is when the people have a mind to work, and not when 
work is easy, that important undertakings are carried through. 
The Society Eecords abound in testimony to the consultati.ms 
and devices, and comings and goings, and taxations and expen- 
ditures, through which the work was brought to its issue. Mr. 
Lockwood had the satisfaction of preaching in it for about 
eight years (1764 to 1772), when his ministry ended, and he was 
gathered to the company of God's faithful servants who had 
gone before. 

After Mr. Lockwood, comes Rev. Dr. John Marsh, whose pas- 
torate covers the time from 1774 to 1821, though the colleague- 
ship of Dr. Tenney commences in 1816, and Dr. Marsh's active 
ministry is probably to be regarded as closing about that time. 
His was the last and longest of three long pastorates, Mr. Mix 
filling out forty-four years, Mr. Lockwood thirty-three, and I^Ir. 
Marsh forty-eight. His ministry began and ended in times of 
great public excitement. 

At the beginning was the Eevolutionary War, and the grand 
epoch which the p.ople of the United States commemorate so 
conspicuously the present year. The cloud of that war was already 
rising dense and dark, and its thunders muttering, at the time 
of his settlement in 1774, and soon the long and weary conflict 
came on. How largely Wethersfield shared in its toils and sac- 
rifices does not appear from records so distinctly as might be 
desired. But we have enough from various sources to show us 



17 

that Dr. Marsh and the jjeople were intensely in sympathy 
with it. 

In 1775 we have on record the resolutions passed in town 
meeting, expressive of sympathy with the people of Boston in 
their privations, and providing for a contribution of supplies, to 
be sent them. Still earlier, resolutions endorsing the patriotic 
action of the General Court, and pledging co-operation for the 
country's defence. At the very opening of the contest, was the 
organization of that famous company of a hundred men, addressed 
by the pastor on a Sunday morning, upon the tidings of the bat- 
tle of Lexington, dispersed in the afternoon to make the needed 
preparations, drawn up again near evening upon the green in 
front of this church, commended to God in prayer, and at once 
setting out for Boston, escorted by the pastor and others beyond 
the river. They returned indeed soon after, upon information 
that their services were not yet needed, but set out again, and 
were with the little army in season to share in the battle of 
Bunker Hill, under the command of Capt. John Chester. Many 
hints of what was going on, and of how the people felt and acted 
through those eventful years, are scattered through the town 
records, though hardly significant enough to demand quotation 
here. Enough to show that Wethersfield was not behind the 
State at large, and not to be behind Connecticut in that great 
conflict, was to be in the very front rank; for no State of the 
whole thirteen furnished, in proportion to its population, so 
many men, and so many years of service, as Connecticut did. 

The Church and the pastor were heartily in the woi'k. Indeed 
that was true of the Churches and pastors of Xew England gen- 
erally. '*It was the ministers that did it,"' said President John 
Adams. And the late Eev. Dr. Spring, of Xew York, affirms 
with a positiveuess that will be justified more than ever Avhen the 
researches of this centennial year are complete: **'Had the Con- 
gregational and Presbyterian ministers taken the ground that 
the ministers of certain other denominations did, the war of in- 
dependence would never have been carried through." 

The fact of Washington's sojourn in Wethersfield, for some 
days at least, during the war, and of the presence of other high 
officers, both French and American, who were here in consulta- 
tion with him, is undoubted. His attendance upon this church, 
hi ; courtesy to its pastor, his demonstration of interest not to 



18 

ear snrprse. at the great choir of a hundred and fifty, lining the 
entile gallery Iront, are facts that have been handed down to ns. 
The patriotic utterances of the pastor throughout the war, and 
the patriotic earnestness of his prayers, are spoken of by those 
■who were accustomed to hear of them from their older kindred. 

And yet, undoubtedly, the war excitement wrought unfavora- 
bly, for the time, on the spiritual interests of the p?ople. Still 
more unfavorable the year that immediately followed, when war 
had so largely demoralized the country, and the infidelity which 
came in so largely thr)Ugh the French alliance had spread 
through the central portions of the country, and almost poisoned 
the fountains of the national life. In such times Dr. Marsh's 
ministry began. Hardly less unfavorable were the closing years 
when that contest, surpassing in bitterness all others that Con- 
necticut has ever known, was going on between the "old stand- 
ing order" and Federalism on the one hand, and the Democratic 
party and the newer religious sects on the other. The new con- 
stitution of Connecticu., putting the churches upon one common 
footing, and upon their own unaided resources, fell like mid- 
niglit upon our churches and pastors, and yet ushered in for 
them a more glorious morning than they had ever known. It 
was adopted, and the great conflict ended the very year that Dr. 
Marsh died. And yet, amid all thtse disturbing influences, his 
ministry was a fruitful one. The work of the Church went st>-ad- 
ily on. There were ingatherings from year to year ; the most 
conspicuous in 1814, two years before Dr. Tenney came as col- 
league. In that year eighty-six were added to the Church, and in 
the whcle period of Dr. Marsh's ministry, four hundred and 
eighty-five. Eev. Dr. Sprague, in his Annals of the American 
Pulpit, says of Dr. Marsh, "There is reason to believe that he 
feared God from his youth. He used to suy that he did not know 
when he had not a love for religion. His sermons indicate a 
much higher degree of literary culture than was common among 
his contemporaries. He was an earnest friend of education, and 
rendered important aid to indigent young men, who were prepar- 
ing for usefulness. He was a zealous patriot, and took a deep 
interest in the establishment of our independence and of our 
constitutional government. In his last illness he had great tran- 
quility of mind, and died in the joyful hope of a bt-tter life." 

Next c<.>mes the pastorate of K^v. Caleb J. Tenney, D.D., who 



19 

was settled as colleague with Dr. Marsh, in I.SIG, and bec.irae 
sole pastor at Dr. Marsli's decease, in 1821. His ministry lasted 
twenty-five years, or, if you count it closed when a colleazue was 
famished hira, it was nineteen years only. The most memorable 
event of his time, if I may not rather say in the whole history of 
the Church, was the great revival of 1820-21, none equaling it 
in extent or in power, whether before or since. It was in a time 
of revivals, widely spread through Connecticut. It was preceded, 
as one who vividly remembers it tells me, by a great amount of 
wonderfully instructive, faithful, impressive preiching, in the 
ordinary course of Sabbath labor; preaching which, sent home 
by the Holy Spirit, brought profess-d C iristians to a d-ep sense 
of their sins, and to d-ep repentence before GroJ. From D^^cem- 
ber 1820, onward for several months, Rev. Mr. Xettleton, so fa- 
mous in that day and since, labored in connexion with the pastor. 
I cannot do better t!ian to give an extract from Mr. Tenney's own 
account of the revival as contained in a religious newspaper. 
•' Previous to the revival our Church c msisted of about two hun- 
dred and sixty members. As its fruit, precisely two hundred 
more have been added, s?venty-nine of them heads of families. 
Some instances of conversion have been strongly marked. The 
awakening of some has been sudden and powerful, and has soon 
issued in triumphant peace. In others it has been as the still 
small voice. One man, who had been a total disbeliever in revel- 
ation, examined the subject with all the coolness of a mathema- 
tician, untile in the course of a few weeks, the great truths of 
Scripture bore upon his soul with insupp u'table power, and he 
yielded to God. One aged man said, 'If I have ever been born 
of God, it was on the day I was seventy-six years old.' Another 
said, 'It was the day I was sixty-eight.' In one fiimily, a mother 
of eleven children, who had long gone to the table of Christ 
mourning that of her great family there was not one to accom- 
pany her, now hopes that eight of her children are converted to 
God. In another family, consisting of parents and seven chil- 
dren, all but one hope they have b.-come Christians. God has 
illustriously displayed his perfections in the work whieli is 
emphatically His. To Him all the glory is due." 

Very considerable additions were made to the Church in 1826 
and in 1831, thirty-seven in the first-named year, and fifty-live 
in the last-named. It was after this ingathering that the Church 



20 

had a membership of five hundred, a larger number than at any 
other time in its history. Eev. Eoyal Eobbins, in a historical 
discourse prepared for the Centennial of this church edifice, in 
1861, but in consequence of his own sudden death never deliv- 
ered, says of Dr. Tenney : " As a preacher and a man he was so plain 
and unpretending, that his scholarship seems to have attracted little 
notice; but the power of his discourse and the influence of his 
piety were wonderfully felt by all who came in contact with him. 
I hardly know whether to characterize him more as a son of 
thunder, or a son of consolation." 

In the later years of Dr. Tenney, came up that theological con- 
troversy which the older ministers, and people of our time, so 
well remember, and which, passing beyond the limits, I will ven- 
ture to say the fit limits, of the ministerial association and the 
professional school, shook the churches almost to their founda- 
tions. The plain people, like Ahimaaz, the son of Zadok, "saw 
a great tumult," even if like Ahimaaz, they '' knew not what it 
was." Dr. Tenney was deeply, and of course, most conscien- 
tiously enlisted. The people were, to some extent, arrayed in 
parties. Eev. Mr. Warren brought in as colleague, through the 
influence of Dr. Tenney, and the portion of the church that 
most fully sympathized in his views, continued but a single year. 
Then, after a year's interval, came Eev. Eobert Southgate, know- 
ing enough not to know Taylorism or Tylerism, but only Jesus 
Christ and Him crucified, and the church was at peace again. 
Mr. Southgate's ministry, as well as that of Dr. Tenney, must be 
accounted as among the richest spiritually, in the history of the 
church. The greater part of it was a time of revival, and in the 
five years, during which it continued, one hundred and seventy- 
five were added to the church. 

The pastorate of Eev. Dr. Mark Tucker (1845-1856), comes 
within the clear remembrance of many of you, and I will not 
speak of it at length. He was already widely known and honored 
as a faithful and successful minister of Christ, when he came 
among you. He had occupied various positions of prominence 
and importance. He came, comparatively in the evening of his 
days, and yet fresh and vigorous, and hopeful. How true a man 
he was, how conscientious, how faithful, how charitable, how 
christian, you Avell remember. Even to old age, he carried 
sunshine with him. For the greater part of the time after his 



21 

pastorate closed, he lived among you honored and beloved, till a 
little more thiin a year since, God took liini to his n-Txard. 

Eev. AVillis Colton's niinistr}', ()856-]860), so ftiithfuKso earn- 
est, so kindly, leaving behind it so many friends and so many 
who felt that their minister was their friend, is fresh in your 
remembrance, better known to yon than to me, and does not 
seem to require extended notice. It gathered into the church 
about a hundred and forty members. My own pastorate dates 
from January 18G8, and is corsequently in its ninth year. 

I have given, thus, a rapid sketch of the history of the First 
Church of Christ in Wethersfield, glimpses rather of its condi- 
tion, such as I have been able to gain through openings here and 
there in the darkness of the past. I cannot stay to speak of 
town affairs as such. I cannot stay to speak of particular fami- 
lies ; of names honored in this community, and commonwealth, 
and country ; of officers and men who shared in the contest for 
our national independence ; of judges and chief justices, who 
were born here, and baptized in this church; of men conspicu- 
ous in the councils of the nation ; of the brothers of a single 
household, who went out from among us, and whose benefactions 
to private and public charities are reckoned in millions ; of christ- 
ian ministers, trained up among us; of many others, who in 
various spheres have served God and their country. I speak of 
the church, and of the town, only as it connects with the church, 
and as I can, within the limits of a Sabbath discourse. 

The study which I have given to the whole subject, though 
yielding less than might have been hoped on some points, has 
been to me a study of great interest. It has been pleasant to 
come so near the roots of our Xew England life, and to see a lit- 
tle more distinctly what manner of men our fathers were, and 
from what beginnings our structuie of church and state alike 
has been reared. One would like to know those beginnings more 
minutely. One would like to be put back, if that were possible, 
into a week of Mr. Mix's ministrj-, or Mr. Lockwood's, and to see 
and feel the whole ongoing of a society so peculiar and so unlike 
our own. There was a wonderful manhood in the best part of 
society in those early days; a God-consciousness, as they say now, 
a sense of justice, equal and exact, a genuine and yet a carefully 
meted and bounded philanthropy, an impossibility of doing any- 
thing save by exactest use of square and compass : an inflexible 



22 

determination to do right, and yet not to go a hair's breadth be- 
yond right. And yet there was a bad element in society even 
then, as bad and base as anything in onr day ; kept under and 
punisiied with great severity, indeed, but not eradicated. Nor 
was the good, all that a glowing imagination has sometimes 
painted it. There was wilfulness as well as conscientiousness, 
rigidity, as well as firmness, harsliness, as well as faithfuhiess. 
The records do not show a golden age. The sharp and fre- 
quent contentions of the first thirty years, the ceremonialism of 
good Mr. Mix's time, the immoralities among church members, 
intimated on almost every page of Mr. Lockwood's records, the 
infelicitous methods by which, here as elsewhere, it was sought 
to maintain the tone of public morals, and to compel the support 
of religions institutions of all these things show that our fathers 
had not attained perfection, either of theory or practice, and 
save us from the temptation to worship them or their times. 

Bright spots then, are in the past and grand features of the 
early times, in the presence of which we cannot well help con- 
fessing a certain degeneracy, but I am not inclined the more, 
from these recent studies, to believe that the former times-were, on 
the whole, better than these. If we have lost something of the 
good which our fathers had, we have attained other good which 
they knew little about. The cause of truth, and humanity, and 
of our Lord Jesus Christ '' goes marching on." 

A word in closing, on the present and the future of our 
church. We occupy a position yery different from that of our 
fathers a hundred years ago. The change that has passed upon 
our older communities generally, has passed upon us also. We 
are no longer the homogeneous people we were then. The " old 
standing order" has no longer the spiritual leadership of the 
entire community. The original im]iulse, under which New 
England institutions began, has somewhat spent its force. The 
power of the old traditions is weakened. New yarieties of the 
christian faith, and of church order have arisen to diyide with 
us the labor and the responsibility. As the world is, and as the 
church is, it is, perhaps, better so. At all eyents, it is so, and 
our ]iart is to acknowledge in all cordiality and brotherliness, our 
christian neighbors, and the christian churches among us, of 
whatever name, and to work, so far as they will let us, in a kind- 
ly co-operation with them. 



23 

At the same time our distinctive field of labor is large enough 
to draw out all our energies, and the encouragements which 
attend it on the whole, as great as at any previous time, certainly 
greater than a century ago. We are indeed, but one church out 
of five, in a population no larger than when one church, a cen- 
tury ago stood absolutely alone. But we have still a hundred 
and seventy-five families, more than all the other congregations 
together, and have a proportionate privilege and responsibility. 
"We have three hundred and thirty-!«ix church members, a larger 
number in proportion to the congregation than ever before. 
Something more than one third of these have come in within the 
past eight years. Of the comparative piety of the present gene- 
ration, it would not become me to speak. I certainly shall not 
say that we are better than our fathers. The study of the past 
makes me more than ever afraid that they were not much better 
than we. Our Sabbath School numbers about two hundred and 
sixty. It is larger than it was twenty-five years ago, when, with 
an equal population, there was no other school within the limits 
of the present town. If you add to it the Griswoldville school, 
which, though called a Union School, was originated, and is 
mainly carried on by members of our church, yon have almost a 
hundred more to set down to the credit of the present time. 

A century ago, nay, mainly until fifty years ago, prayer meet- 
ings were unknown among us. We have now four staged meet- 
ings in as many different localities, gathering weekly, for prayer 
and praise, not less than two hundred persons. They are grow- 
ing ill interest: and if there are among us none so conspicuous 
for leadership in chiistian work as were a few whose names have 
come down from a generation ago, the number of those who 
share in that work is greater, and is still increasing. In our 
religious charities there is the same advance within the last thirty 
years, that is noticed in christian churches generally. In our 
parochial affairs we have emerged somewhat from the old darkness 
of law, and tax, and compulsion, and are learning to depend on 
public spirit and the spontaneous liberality of christian hearts. 

Our church organ, purchased seven or eight years ago, at a cost 
of two thousand dollars, was the first that Wetheisfield ever had, 
and, so far as I can learn, the first thing of any considerable mag- 
nitude that Wethersfield ever did by voluntary subscription. 

Our new chapel, built and furnished at a cost of five or six 



•24 

thousand dollars, followed soon after; and, along with it, the 
chapel of our Griswoldville brethren, at a cost of four thousand 
dollars. The same idea of public spirit and of spontaneous giv- 
ing, and giving for the cause sake, and for our Lord and Master, 
and not merely to pay the charge for a value received by our- 
selves, will put our finances and our whole establishment on a 
better footing than they ever held in their palmiest days. 

Some of you may be almost ready, in view of these statements, 
to ask if your minister is not "become a fool in glorying." If 
there be such, my answer is that "ye have compelled me." I do 
but put glorying against wailing, and gratefully recognize the 
good of the present as well as the often exaggerated glories of the 
past. 

Our fathers were men of like passions as we are, and because 
they tuere our fathers, we are what we are to-day, in evil as well 
as in good. They were nothing without the grace of God ; with 
that grace we may hope to do our work as well, at least, as they 
did theirs. 

I thank God for the past, but I thank him also for the present ; 
for the better understood gospel; for freedom from entangling 
alliance with the State ; for the system which puts the support 
of religious institutions on the friends of religion, instead of 
compelling it from friends and foes alike ; for the broad field of 
labor which is still left us, notwithstanding the denominational 
varieties of our time ; for the theory and the growing practice 
which confers the privilege and imposes the responsibility of 
christian work upon the whole body of christian people, instead 
of restricting both to a professional class ; for the comparative 
peace and harmony of our time; for the good work of God's 
grace which is going forward in many of our churches and is not 
wholly unknown among us ; for the hope awakened by the Di- 
vine promises, by the signs of the times, by the Spirit working in 
our own hearts, of blessings in the near future. Earnest labor, 
fervent prayer, the indwelling and the outworking of the Spirit, 
have been the strength of this church in its best days past. In 
these lie all our hopes for the future. I pray you bretheren, 
engage in God's work anew. Give yourselves anew to prayer. 
Be sucn men that God will dwell with you by His Spirit. " Ye 
that make mention of the Lord, keep not silence, and give Him 
no rest till He establish and make Jerusalem a praise." 



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